Category Archives: Their Work

The Kansas City firm of Horner & Wyatt, Engineers, designed grain terminal giants

by kocart

DSC02466Story and photo by Kristen Cart

Often a reader will turn our blog in a whole new direction by revealing a facet of the grain business we had not explored. In the case of Horner & Wyatt, an engineering and design firm out of Kansas City, reader David Chatt piqued our interest by asking us to locate some of their work. His grandfather, Oliver Howard Horner, a partner in the company, died  in the late 1930s.  David wanted to know more about the sites he had helped design. The quest seemed to be right up our alley.

It might be possible to discover the identity of the architects at elevator offices, but the common method of checking for the builder’s name on elevator manhole covers would only reveal the guys who poured the concrete. At McCook, Neb., a plaque inside the elevator names the designers. But newspaper accounts, journals, or local histories are the best way to learn about the architects of most elevators, especially for the large projects that changed the face of their communities.

David told us  the Galveston elevator, which was destroyed some years ago, was the only Horner & Wyatt site he could find. Further investigation revealed the company as a major player in elevator architecture, active as early as the 1920s. Our search for their projects revealed a completely different side of grain storage requirements: the end of the logistics trail, or the terminal elevator. We located a few of them, and most appeared to be massive.

Oliver H. Horner was an electrical engineer working for Black & Veach at the time he registered for the draft in 1917. By 1921, he was a partner in his own firm, based in Kansas City. In the 1930s he was engineering some of the biggest elevator projects in the country. He was still listed in that capacity in the city directory as late as 1939. Newspaper accounts described Horner & Wyatt as “consulting engineers” on various projects, which became increasingly complex as time went on.

Some of the sites we found, which were completed during Oliver’s lifetime, were elevators at El Reno, Okla., the Gooch Feed Mill at Lincoln, Neb., and the levee terminal at Kaw Point in Kansas City, Kan. The company continued to design massive elevators into the 1950s at sites such as Happy and Lubbock, Tex., and the port terminal at Corpus Christi, Tex. Doubtless the designs for the later projects built upon the experience and ideas that went before and bore the unmistakable imprint of the company’s earlier engineers.

Oliver H. Horner left a legacy to be proud of, with elevators and mills still standing and operating in premier locations around the country. Horner and Wyatt was one of the top engineering companies working during the twentieth-century elevator boom. It’s very nice that one of our readers took the time to point them out.

In 1954, near the boom’s end, Albert City, Iowa, had a gleaming concrete elevator

by baggyparagraphs

Albert City, Iowa

By Ronald Ahrens 

Looking at this photo of Tillotson Construction Company’s 252,000-bushel elevator, completed in 1954, it’s easy to imagine the pride and awe of a small town’s few hundred residents.

Albert City is in northwest Iowa on a spur from Route 3, not far from Storm Lake in Buena Vista County. The Tillotson’s had also built that same year in nearby Pocahontas, where there was tragedy.

The Albert City job went more smoothly as the structure rose far above the tallest elms, although Uncle Charles Tillotson, who recently dug up this photo, has written about his frightening dismount from the formwork during a storm.

Uncle Michael Tillotson has also recollected about working here:

“The following summer (1954) we went to Albert City, Iowa, 75 miles North of Council Bluffs. We rented rooms in a private home. We worked with a 20 something guy that ran the winch pulley bucket to the top of the elevator as it progressed, and brought building materials down. We also rode the bucket up and down to get on deck. The elevator bens were 125 feet to the top with a Head-House of 75 on top of that.”

Company records show the elevator was built according to the same plan used in Pocahontas. This entailed eight outer bins that were eighteen feet in diameter and, contrary to Uncle Mike’s reckoning, 120 feet tall. Altogether, some 2091 cubic yards of concrete were reinforced by 106.57 tons of steel.

The bins rose from a main slab 21 inches thick and 60 x 72.5 square feet in area. It supported a gross loaded weight of 12,974 tons.

The cupola, or headhouse, was 23 feet wide, 58 feet tall, and 40 feet long.

Albert City was a single-leg elevator. Its head pulley was 72 inches in diameter and turned at 42 rpm. A 40-horsepower Howell motor supplied more than enough energy to turn it.

Twelve-inch-wide cups on a six-ply, 14-inch-wide belt carried up the grain that was dumped by incoming trucks. The 12-foot-wide driveway had two dump grates: 9 x 6 feet and 9 x 14 feet.

In 1954, Tillotson also built in Dacoma, Lahoma, Orienta, and Weatherford, Okla.; Booker, Tex.; Ensign and Montezuma, Kan.; Bellwood, Neb.; and Glidden, Goldfield, Newell, Manson, Pocahontas, and Iowa Falls, Iowa.

These were among Tillotson’s last elevators–the records close out with work in 1955–and they represented nearly everything the company knew about building.

A visit to Google Maps shows the elevator is still standing, which is to be expected given the Herculean effort needed to knock down all that reinforced concrete. But it appears idle. Given what we’ve learned about the limitations of midcentury elevators and today’s need for greater storage capacity and quicker unloading, that would make sense.

Nevertheless, it endures as a handmade monument, and a rich human history goes with it.

This ‘continuous pour’–and the marching band–would delight our grandfathers

by baggyparagraphs

By Ronald Ahrens

Photo by AC Martin.

Photo by AC Martin.

A  USA Today insert in my Feb. 6 edition of the Desert Sun newspaper carried this story about the new tower under construction in Los Angeles. The news will be of interest to the concrete enthusiasts among our readers.

The report on the 1100-foot Wilshire Grand project describes how the the foundation slab will be laid on Feb. 15: “The project will attempt to set a Guinness World Record with the largest continuous concrete pour ever… More than 2,100 truckloads will deliver 21,200 cubic yards of concrete weighing 82 million pounds.”

A typical Tillotson elevator–for example, Albert City, Iowa–needed 2091 cubic yards of reinforced concrete. That’s just under one percent of what’s going into the 100-foot-deep hole on Wilshire Boulevard. I’m trying (without success) to picture 100 grain elevators compressed in there.

The USC band will precede the first truck to the site.  It is not recorded that any band ever marched to the opening of an elevator job.

Nor is it believed a swimming pool topped any elevator, as will be the case at Wilshire Grand.

Technical complications will arise during the pour, and a quite amazing means of addressing them has been devised, as you will read in the story.

I mentioned all this to Uncle Chuck Tillotson and shared the clipping with him. He said that my grandfather Reginald had foreseen for Tillotson Construction Company a commercial future beyond elevator construction.

Applying their expertise with concrete in different applications would only have been natural, but it’s doubtful  he foresaw anything quite this big.

And I’m sure he didn’t think about anyone taking a dip while 1100 feet above the city.

With their works in Estill, South Carolina, Tillotson built big in cotton country

by kocart
Freshly harvested cotton field in central South Carolina

Freshly harvested cotton field in central South Carolina.

Story and photos by Kristen Cart

The brightly wrapped cotton bales highlighted an otherwise drab landscape as I traveled the 91 miles south from Columbia to visit the Estill elevator, originally built in 1947. Rain and haze flattened the view. Since it was Sunday when I visited the elevator, few people appeared to be about. It was going to be a photography outing, for better or for worse.

DSC_3487

The Estill elevator, greatly expanded since it was built in 1947, was secured behind barbed wire.

I graduated high school in South Carolina. My impression of the place, after growing up in the western desert, was one of endless dark pine woods, with a brief gaudy display of azaleas and dogwood blooms in springtime.  I didn’t appreciate the raw beauty at the time. Now, on a soggy day, it had a mysterious appeal.

DSC_3431When I learned that the Tillotson Construction Company built an elevator in the state, it came as a surprise. We do not know who built the original house in 1947. Tillotson, according to company records, built the 225,000-bushel annex and a second, larger elevator, in 1952 and 1953, respectively. The trademark rounded headhouse rises above the 350,000 bushel elevator, built to finish the concrete elevator complex.

Michael M. DeWitt, Jr. outlined the history of the Estill elevator in his article for the Hampton County Guardian published on December 14, 2010. The article was written to herald the purchase of Carolina Soya by ADM. During its heyday, the elevator stored soybeans for soybean processing, which was part of the operation. Now it is strictly a storage facility for ADM, focusing on soybeans but also accepting corn.

The company laid off staff upon acquiring the facility in 2010, shrinking from 45 to 14 workers, heralding a loss to the community in a time of slow economic growth. ADM promised to hire from the laid off worker pool as needed.

DSC_3406I noticed that the good times had passed during my drive down. The decline of the area was evidenced by empty store fronts and decrepit gas stations, ancient closed restaurants, and tired houses–all along the highway south from Columbia, it was apparent that development chose another corridor and not this one. I wondered if there was one open gas station anywhere along the route.

The histories neglect one of the Estill elevator’s darker episodes. In the ’40s and ’50s, construction safety was not mandated as it is now. In one of the accidents that was all too common for elevator construction, Wayne Eugene Baker lost his life in a fall while working on the storage addition, or annex, built in 1952. For all of the heartache, Wayne helped build a thing of beauty that sustained its neighborhood for many years and still brings economic benefit to its region.

How a 1950 elevator matches advanced farming practices in Cordell, Oklahoma

by kocart

DSC_2318Story and Photos by Kristen Cart

Once we discovered that the Cordell, Oklahoma elevator was built by Mayer-Osborn, it became a priority to pay a visit.  Luckily an opportunity presented itself when I went shopping for an Australian Shepherd puppy for my son Jesse. Deadra Buffing breeds lovely pups at Horse Creek Aussies right there in Cordell, and we found the right dog, so off I went on a puppy mission, first flying to Oklahoma City then driving two hours west to Cordell. (I’m sure there were breeders closer to home, but this coincidence was too good to pass up.)

DSC_2335But the first stop was the Mayer-Osborn elevator. After a quick tour around the outside with my camera, I stepped inside the Wheeler Brothers Grain Company office. There, Jim Balzer greeted me. He was more than happy to share his insights and long experience with the Cordell elevator. His stint at the elevator spanned a number of owners, beginning in 1979 with General Mills.

General Mills sold their Oklahoma operations in about 1984, including elevators at Cordell, Bessie, Carrier, Reading, and the terminal at Enid. Logan Farms bought the Cordell elevator from General Mills, then Johnson’s Grain bought it. Goodpasture, out of Texas, owned it for awhile. Wheeler Brothers finally bought it in 1996 or 1997.

After 1984, a truck spout was added on the west side of the elevator, and the train spout on the east side was remodeled using salvaged parts. The old wooden doors were also replaced with metal ones. Jim said the elevator is holding corn for the first time, an atypical crop for the area, but a sign of the times due to ethanol subsidies.

DSC_2333

Jim Balzer has worked at the Cordell elevator since 1979. The small elevator has stood as long as he can remember.

The structure is completely unique, having two driveways. It’s special features are its two legs, each rated at 5,000 bushels per hour, to achieve an unload rate of 10,000 bushels per hour. Most elevators of this size and age have long since retired because of limitations in their loading rates, if not for their lack of capacity. Jim said their newer, larger elevator at Cordell, when running “full out” with its single leg, only surpassed the old elevator by a little bit at 11,500 bushels per hour.

In the past, all manner of vehicles would line up to unload their grain at Cordell. The earliest were horse-drawn wagons, used in the old wooden elevator days (before Jim’s time, he noted), where the farmers would scoop the grain manually into the pit. Jim showed me a bit of concrete foundation by the tracks where the wood elevator used to be. A slow leg was no problem then, because the choke point of the process was the farmer’s shovel.

Years later, after the concrete elevator was built, farmers drove their trucks in and unloaded them much more quickly. They would queue up in the hot sun and wait their turn, while Jim’s young daughter brought them cold pop from a wagon.

Now, nothing much smaller than a semi-tractor trailer will bring grain, and the leg speed is much more crucial. Rail cars are also serviced at the small elevator. The Cordell elevator was far ahead of its time, able to keep up with advances in farming practices. It is a testament to the forethought of the original designers that the Mayer-Osborn elevator still meets the need.

The Mayer -Osborn Construction Company is identified on the manhole cover

The Mayer-Osborn Construction Company is identified on the manhole cover.

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Dennis Russell reflects on his brother Jim’s tragic death on the Murphy, Neb., elevator

by baggyparagraphs
This photo, provided by Kurtis Glinn, shows Tillotson Construction's Murphy elevator in the early 1960s. Note the ground storage of grain sorghum on the right.

This photo, provided by Kurtis Glinn, shows Tillotson Construction’s Murphy, Neb., elevator in the early 1960s. Note the ground storage of grain sorghum on the right, and the old wooden elevator on the left.

By Ronald Ahrens  

A recent telephone conversation with Dennis Russell, who lives in Plano, Tex., revealed more details about the Russell family and his brother Jim, who died in an accident during construction of the Murphy, Neb., elevator. Dennis was the youngest of eight brothers: Bob, Roger, Jim, Jack, Byron, Bill, and Mark.

Their father William, born in 1900, had done construction on ammunition depots during World War Two, Dennis recalled. William, known as Bill, went to work for Tillotson Construction Company at an unknown date after the War.

“He worked for them a long time,” Dennis said. “He left Tillotson’s and started Mid States Construction Company with Gordon Erickson and another individual. I think he was a partner for a brief period and then ran jobs for them as a superintendent until his retirement.”

The name was changed to Mid States Equipment Company. Grain elevators and feed mills were the main specialties. Bill Russell retired in 1972, but he “always had fond memories working for Tillotson, I know that,” Dennis said. “I remember he was awful fond of Mary.”

Jim Russell’s promising future cut short 

Dennis was born in 1949. “My whole life was elevators. We moved every year from ’59 till I graduated high school.”

All the Russell brothers worked on elevators, Dennis recalled. “I worked on those quite a bit myself every summer.”

“Jim, he was third-oldest, he died in, like, ’58 in Murphy, Neb., right outside of Aurora. There was an article about that in the Aurora paper at the time. We lived in Vermillion, South Dakota, but that summer I was in Aurora, we were staying with Dad. I remember Mom taking that phone call.”

At the time of his death in a freak accident (the links below tell the story), Jim was married to Shirley, a nurse, and had one year of law school remaining at the University of South Dakota.

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More details on the Nebraska elevator site where Jim Russell died

by baggyparagraphs

By Kurt Glinn

I was the manager at the Aurora Cooperative Murphy location in central Nebraska. I was told from the old timers in the area that were around when the elevator was built in the late-’50s [that an] accident happened there, shutting down construction for about a week.

The Aurora Coop's Murphy elevator and annex. Jim Russell died in a fall during the elevator's construction.

The Aurora Coop’s Murphy elevator and annex. Jim Russell died in a fall during construction.

Murphy is no more than an elevator along the railroad now. It is six miles west of Aurora, Neb., or fifteen miles east of Grand Island, Neb.

Thank you for a wonderful site. One of my first bosses was a man by the name of Willis “Bill” Maahs. He was a superintendent for Tillotson into the early ’60s when he stayed in Aurora and  became operations supervisor for Aurora Co-op. He helped build the Murphy elevator and the Aurora elevators. There are two Tillotson houses in town, as well as the feed mill in Aurora.

I have always been intrigued with the workings of the old concrete houses versus the new bigger faster ones, although I know how farming and the grain business view them.

Concrete grain elevators are very highly regarded in the industry as the most permanent. My reference is to the older, smaller, multi-bin elevators of 20,000- to 25,000-bushel bins versus the newer 250,000- to 300,000-bushel bins being built.

The industry has come along way in the last fifty years: the ability to jack the forms with hydraulics, the diameter of the bins, the height and capacity of legs. Putting all the equipment outside of the structures rather than enclosing everything in the house, which has saved many elevators from the disaster of explosions, et cetera.

Farmers are into a newer generation also, thirty-five years and younger. They want fast unload and large unloading pits.
The ag industry as a whole had seen large improvements in the size and capacity of equipment, making some of the smaller, older elevators almost impossible to use.

I find the older ones more interesting because they were what started a new generation from wood houses to concrete. Building work floors and platforms from concrete rather than steel and expanded metal. All is my own opinion as to why I enjoy the first generation of concrete grain elevators in the ag industry.

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A freak accident led to the fatal fall of Bill Russell’s son

by baggyparagraphs
The Aurora Coop's Murphy elevator and annex. Jim Russell died in a fall during the elevator's construction.

The Aurora Cooperative’s Murphy elevator and annex. Jim Russell died in a fall during the elevator’s construction. Photo by Kurt Glinn.

Story by Ronald Ahrens

My uncle, Tim Tillotson, recalls some details of the death of a son of Bill Russell, a superintendent for Tillotson Construction Company. Russell was the father of eight sons in all. The accident occurred in the 1950s.

Although he can’t remember which job [it was the Aurora Cooperative’s Murphy location in central Nebraska] or when it happened, Uncle Tim, who was not present at the time, recalls from on-the-scene reports that two of Russell’s sons were running the night crew.

The two were working with a storey pole, a measuring device of ancient origin. In this case, the storey pole was a metal tape, and it was used to verify the height of vertical sections. One son was on top, fifty-five feet up, feeding the tape down to the other on the ground.

“It was blowing in the wind, and he was letting it out,” Uncle Tim says. “The wind caught it to some power lines, and it gave him a jolt.”

A fall to the ground ensued.

“One side of him hit the Georgia buggy, which kind of spun him around. He was conscious on the ground, saying he thought he’d broken a leg. But by the time the ambulance got there, he’d died of shock.”

Uncle Tim suggests the likelihood of a brain hemorrhage as well.

Mayer-Osborn elevator contract proposals are preserved at Wauneta, Nebraska

by kocart
Much of the time on the road was spent marketing. William Osborn at the wheel

William Osborn at the wheel. Much of his time was spent selling elevators to prospective buyers.

Story by Kristen Cart

The Mayer-Osborn Construction Company built their elevators from 1949 until about 1955. To do this, they had to beat out a number of formidable competitors, both large and small, vying for the same jobs. But they did not win the contract every time they tried. One example of their perseverance survives at the Frenchman Valley Co-op at Wauneta, a town in southwestern Nebraska. Mayer-Osborn did not win their bid, but their contract proposals, made over a period of several years, are still kept in the co-op vault among blueprints and records spanning almost 70 years.

The cover letter for the Mayer-Osborn contract proposal at Wauneta, Neb.

The cover letter for the Mayer-Osborn contract proposal at Wauneta, Neb.

When I was first trying to get a handle on the scope of Mayer-Osborn’s business, I asked my dad, Jerry Osborn, which partner did most of the marketing. I was under the mistaken impression that Eugene Mayer was in charge of all that, and I thought that all my grandfather William Osborn had to do was show up and start pouring concrete.

“No,” Dad said, “Gene Mayer took care of the office and accounting, but your grandpa did a lot of the sales.”

This ad for Mayer-Osborn Company ran in Farmers' Elevator Guide over a period of several years in the early 1950s.

This ad for Mayer-Osborn Company ran in Farmers’ Elevator Guide over a period of several years in the early 1950s.

Grandpa put many miles on his cars, visiting prospective clients, when he was not supervising an active construction site. He spent almost all of his time on the road. Dad recalls that he and his mother were home alone during those years, while his brother Dick was in Korea and his sister Audrey was married. We have a few pictures of Dad with both of his parents, but they were taken at a job site. The sales part of Grandpa’s job took much more effort than I had ever imagined.

For a closer look at the Mayer-Osborn plans for Wauneta, Neb., and the final outcome of their efforts, stay tuned.

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